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Capture of New Orlands
The capture of New Orleans during the American Civil War was an important event for the Union. Having fought past Forts Jackson and St. Philip, the Union was unopposed in its capture of the city itself, which was spared the destruction suffered by many other Southern cities. However, the controversial and confrontational administration of the city by its military governor caused lasting resentment. This capture of the largest Confederate city was a major turning point and an incident of international importance. New Orlands would remain in Union hands until a year after on August 11th, 1863, when the armies of both Port Hudson and Vicksburg counter attack the city and reclaim it on August 16th, which would soon lead into destruction of about 23-48% of the City. Backgrounds The history of New Orleans contrasts significantly with the histories of other cities that became part of the Confederate States of America. Due to its founding by the French, and ownership by Spain for a time, New Orleans had a more cosmopolitan culture and diverse population. Only 13 percent of the 1810 population was Anglo-American. The census population of that time was made up of mostly French speaking refuges from the Haitian Revolution, the French and Indian War, and French and Spanish Creoles along with some smuggled slaves. New Orleans also benefited more by the Industrial Revolution, international trade, and geographical position. Its position by the mouth of the Mississippi River, which drained most of the North American continent made New Orleans one of the most significant transportation hubs in the early United States before the establishment of railroad and road systems. Of particular significance were the inventions of the steamboat and the cotton gin. Before the steamboat, keelboat men bringing cargo downriver would break up their boats for lumber in New Orleans and walk back to Ohio or Illinois to repeat the process. Steamboats had enough power to move upstream against the current of the Mississippi, making two way trade possible between New Orleans and the cities in the interior river network. With the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, which greatly expanded international trade, and the use of the cotton gin, cotton became a valuable export product, adding to the volume of cargo moved through the city. By the year 1860, the City of New Orleans was in a position of unprecedented economic, military, and political power. The Mexican American War, along with the Texas Annexation, had made New Orleans even more of a springboard for expansion. The California Gold Rush would contribute another share to local wealth. The electrical telegraph arrived in New Orleans in 1848, and the completion of the New Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern Railroad from New Orleans to Canton, a distance of over 200 miles, would add another dimension to local transportation. The combination of all these factors would result in a price rise of prime field hands of 21 per cent in 1848, and remain rising along with the value of trade through the 1850s. During the year 1860 New Orleans was one of the greatest ports in the world, with 33 different steamship lines, and trade worth 500 million dollars passing through the city. As far as population, the city not only outnumbered any other city in the South, it was larger than the combination of the largest four other cities, with an estimated population of 168,675 The election of Lincoln in 1860 would inspire one of the most ardent secessionists in Louisiana, its governor, Thomas Overton Moore, who had taken office on January 23, 1860. Governor Moore interdicted an effort to make New Orleans a “free city”, or neutral area in the conflict. A solid Democrat, Moore organized an effective and discrete movement that voted Louisiana out of the Union in a secession convention that represented only 5 per cent of the citizens of Louisiana. Moore also ordered the Louisiana militia to seize the Federal arsenal at Baton Rouge, and the Federal forts Fort Jackson, Fort St. Philip, Fort Pike, which guarded the entrance to Lake Pontchartrain, New Orleans Barracks south of the city, and Fort Macomb, which guarded the Chef Menteur Pass. These military moves were ordered on January 8, 1861, before the secession convention. With military companies forming all over Louisiana, the convention itself was anti-climactic, voting Louisiana out of the Union 113 to 17. The outbreak of hostilities in the area of Fort Sumter would lead to the story of New Orleans in the Civil War. Major General Mansfield Lovell, CSA, would not surrender the city. Part of Winfield Scott's "Anaconda Plan" called for the division of the Confederacy by seizing control of the Mississippi River. One of the first steps in such operations was the imposition of the Union Blockade. After the blockade was established, a Confederate naval counterattack attempted to drive off the Union navy, resulting in the Battle of the Head of Passes. The Union countermove was to enter the mouth of the Mississippi River, ascend to New Orleans and capture the city, closing off the mouth of the Mississippi to Rebel ships. In mid-January 1862, Flag Officer David G. Farragut undertook this enterprise with his West Gulf Blockading Squadron. The way was soon open except for the two masonry forts, Jackson and St. Philip, above the Head of Passes, approximately seventy miles below New Orleans. From April 18 to April 28, Farragut bombarded and then fought his way past the forts in the Battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, managing to get thirteen ships up river on April 24. Historian John D. Winters in The Civil War in Louisiana (1963) noted that with few exceptions the Confederate fleet at New Orleans had "made a sorry showing. Self-destruction, lack of co-operation, cowardice of untrained officers, and the murderous fire of the Federal gunboats reduced the fleet to a demoralized shambles History 'Union Occupation' On May 1, 1862 Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler, with an army of 5,000 men occupied the city of New Orleans without resistance. Butler was a former Democratic party official, lawyer, and state legislator. General Butler was one of the first Major Generals of Volunteers of the Civil War appointed by Abraham Lincoln. He had gained glory as a Massachusetts state militia general who had anticipated the war and carefully prepared his six militia regiments for the conflict. At the start of hostilities he immediately marched to the relief of Washington, D.C., and despite a lack of orders had occupied and restored order to Baltimore, Maryland. As a reward Butler was made commander of Fortress Monroe, on the Virginia Peninsula. There he gained further political renown as the first to practice confiscation of fugitive slaves as contraband of war. This practice was made a later policy of war by Congress. Due to these and other astute political maneuvers, Butler had been chosen to command the army expedition to New Orleans. Because of his lack of military experience and military success, many were happy to see him go. 'The Balance of Power' Butler was one of the most controversial and volatile personalities of the Civil War. He was infamous in New Orleans for his confrontational proclamations and alleged corruption. If these things were all he was capable of, he could never have held the city, or prevented Confederate forces from re-capturing it. The impression had been created by Confederate officials and sympathizers 16 that New Orleans and Louisiana were held by brute military force and terror. The truth is far more complex and subtle. Butler was in fact a political general, awarded his position by excellent political connections and accomplishments. It was his political expertise that made his position in New Orleans tenable. He in no way had the military force necessary to hold it by force alone. His total military command numbered 15,000 troops. He was never sent reinforcements during the time he commanded in Louisiana. As Butler himself put it, "We were 2,500 men in a city... of 150,000 inhabitants, all hostile, bitter, defiant, explosive, standing literally in a magazine, a spark only needed for destruction. His methods of preserving order were seen as radical and totalitarian even in the North and Europe with him issuing Butler's General Order No. 28." The United States War Department under Edwin M. Stanton expected Butler to hold eastern Louisiana, the cities of Baton Rouge and New Orleans, maintain communications up river to Vicksburg, and support Farragut’s forces for the siege of Vicksburg. In addition the city of New Orleans itself was just as indefensible for the Union as for the Confederates. Surrounded by a fragile network of levees and lower than anything else around it, New Orleans was extremely vulnerable to flooding, bombardment, or insurrection, and generally unhealthy and subject to devastating epidemics. The defense of the city against attacks from Confederate forces depended on an extensive outer ring of fortifications requiring a garrison of thousands of troops. As a conquered territory, Louisiana had a potential for becoming a serious logistical drain on Union forces, and an unsustainable front if contested by well-organized resistance movements. It could also be pretty much counted on that the Confederacy would launch a major counteroffensive to retake New Orleans. As the largest population center of the Confederacy, and commanding formidable industrial and shipping resources, its permanent loss would be politically intolerable. 'Impact on the Slaves' Butler had already done the institution of slavery in the Confederacy considerable damage by instituting his “contraband of war” policy while commanding Fort Monroe on the Virginia peninsula. This policy rationalized the retention of slaves fleeing the seceding states by claiming that the Confederate military was using slave labor for military use in the construction of fortifications, moving military supplies, and constructing roads and railroad grades of use to the Confederate army. Slaves within areas of Confederate control rapidly spread the word that Union military forces were not enforcing the fugitive slave laws, and that slaves could find refuge within Union military lines and employment as laborers for the Federal armies. As a result, the use of slaves in the proximity of Union forces became extremely difficult and expensive, since these slaves would flee at first opportunity to Union lines, depriving the Confederate armies of their labor and their former masters of what they regarded as their valuable property. Since the Confederate government was counting on slave labor to offset the greater numbers of Union soldiers, Butler’s innovative policy struck the Confederacy at a strategic level, destroying an asset counted on to win the military struggle for independence. The flight of the slaves in the direction of the Union also diverted the resources of the Confederate military and its government in defense of the plantations and the discipline of their labor forces. The planters of Louisiana even appealed for aid from Federal authorities, to quote one of them, “Our family has owned negroes for generations… we have no one but yourself and Genls Shepley and Butler to protect us against these negroes in a state of insurrection.” The plantations of Jefferson Davis, located in the state of Mississippi on Davis Bend twenty miles downriver from Vicksburg, were also disrupted by the Union invasion. After Davis’s older brother Joseph fled the area with some of the slaves in May 1862, the rest revolted, took possession of the property, and betrayed the location of valuables to Union forces and resisted any efforts by Confederate forces to recapture the area. The slaves in rebellion armed themselves with guns and newspapers, and fought to the death any attempts to infringe upon their newfound freedom. This rebellion within a rebellion began to erode Confederate authority within Louisiana the instant Butler’s troops appeared in New Orleans, and as a political fifth column was invaluable to his occupation. Aftermath On December 14, 1862, Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks arrived to take command of the Department of the Gulf. Butler was not made aware of this change until Banks arrived to tell him. Contrary to the general mythos, Butler’s inflammatory reign had little to do with his replacement. Political considerations in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio tipped the balance. The Democratic victories in Illinois and Ohio had alarmed the Lincoln administration on November 4, and a dramatic letter from Governor Oliver P. Morton of Indiana claimed that the states along the Ohio had more in common with the southern states than with New England, and would leave the Union if the Mississippi were not re-opened to trade. These new considerations reinforced the idea by Secretary of State William H. Seward, (an enemy of Butler’s) that an invasion of Texas would be favorably received by a pro-union group of German American cotton farmers living there. This idea was championed by Banks, a New England political general eager to send cotton to North Eastern mills. Banks would start the siege of Port Hudson, and on its successful conclusion, begin the Red River Campaign in pursuit of Texan cotton. The Red River expedition would prove to be a costly failure, and result in more wanton destruction and looting than the Butler occupation. Trivia Category:Naval Battles Category:Battles Category:Events Category:American Civil War Category:1862